The sale of standard ticket for the glastonbury music festival
Essay – Title
At 9.00am on Sunday 5th October 2014 the sale of standard tickets for the
Glastonbury music festival took place. Within 27 minutes all of the 120,000 tickets
had been sold and it was reported that over a million people had tried to access the
website.
Using relevant microeconomic theory, assess the system used by the festival
organisers to sell the tickets. You should consider some of the following points in
your answer
– Whether the current price is at a market clearing level?
– The relative merits of using alternative mechanisms to allocate tickets such as
a ballot, first come first served or the price mechanism.
– The impact of limiting the re-sale of tickets on Pareto/allocative efficiency
– The factors that would determine the size of any allocative inefficiency caused
by limiting the re-sale of tickets..
Plagiarism Warning !– Assignments should not be copied in part or in whole from
any other source, except for any marked up quotations, that clearly distinguish what
has been quoted from your own work. All references used must be given, and the
specific page number used should also be given for any direct quotations, which
should be in inverted commas. Students found copying from the internet or other
sources will get zero marks and may be excluded from the university.
Assessment Criteria – Some general points
Your essay will be marked on the accuracy and application of relevant
microeconomics analysis. A common mistake is for students to simply
describe the method used to sell tickets without any detailed application of
relevant microeconomic theory. If you use a numerical example do not simply
copy it out of a book. Also do not simply reproduce the numerical example
used in the lecture. Use your own example and apply it to the question. This
will help to convince the marker that you fully understand the material.
You have been asked to write an essay and not a report. The piece of work
should be in essay format. Essays should not include heading/subheadings or
listing/bulleting of key points. All essays must have an introduction, main
body and conclusion. If these are not included you will lose marks – see the
assessment sheet.
A formal, impersonal and academic writing style is required. Avoid colloquial
language and personal style, such as writing first person singular ’I.’ and
second person ‘you’. For example avoid writing sentences such “In this essay
I will….” – see the assessment sheet.
You should always try to include clearly drawn and labelled diagrams in
economics essays. The diagrams should help to illustrate your arguments and
will improve your essay. They must be clearly explained and can be hand
drawn. They must not be simply copied and pasted from another source. Do
not spend hours trying to create them electronically in MS Word. Think about
the opportunity cost!!!– this time could have been spent on studying
microeconomics – see the assessment sheet.
You are encouraged to research the essay subject area and use any relevant
references. Useful material can be found in the “The Sloman Economics News
Site” “The Economic Review”, “Economic Affairs” and “Economics Today”.
You will find these journals in the library.
References must be correctly displayed in a bibliography at the end of your
essay, otherwise you will lose marks. Referencing should be in Harvard style.
